Few such pipe rests are extant. Tobacco had been introduced to Korea in the seventeenth century, but became really popular only in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Collection:

Gompertz Collection

Category:

porcelain

Name:

pipe rest

Date:

circa 1800  1850first half of the 19th century

Period(s):

19th century; Choson Dynasty (1392 - 1910)

Description:

Pipe rest with openwork decoration. Porcelain, slab-built, pierced, with parts attached, painted in cobalt-blue and glazed. The cubical body has openwork designs of leaves on three sides and a rounded trefoil opening on the fourth, to receive the bowl of a long Korean pipe. Two 'chimneys' are attached to the top, which is also pierced, one in form of a short cylinder, the other in the shape of a freely-modelled lizard with open mouth. The base is flat. Cobalt-blue in light and dark tones is effectively used to indicate the veins of the leaves and to highlight other parts of the pierced and attached decoration. The bluish-white glaze is thickly applied.